This year has been a turbulent one for Super League. We have seen more games plagued by poor decisions by referees or have we?

That’s at least the way it looks whenever you tune into Sky Sports. The microscope is on the referees and the video referees at the moment because of perceived inconsistencies.

Whilst there seems to have been more poor decisions this year than most that’s the case each year. We have a run of games with some controversy and then we have a strong run of matches during which we talk about the quality play on the field.

Last night it was the turn of the latter as Castleford Tigers pulled off a remarkable victory at Warrington Wolves despite a raft of injuries in the camp.

But the night before I couldn’t help but be frustrated by the commentary on Sky Sports during Wakefield Trinity’s win at home over Wigan Warriors.

Tom Johnstone picked up a loose ball at one point during the game close to the Wigan line and went airborne as he scored a spectacular try which reminded everyone of his qualities.

What should have happened straight after this was the commentators talking about how despite a tough year which has included him being dropped by Wakefield, Johnstone is still one of the most talented wingers in Super League.

Instead, resident former referee Stuart Cummings immediately said Johnstone had dropped the ball before scoring. Most fans watching at home were no doubt waiting for another angle to make their own call but Cummings threw his opinion out there straight away as if it was fact.

There has been plenty of top rugby league on show this year in Super League but are we talking about it enough? (Image: Super League)

More angles clearly showed that Johnstone had grounded the ball with his fingers and whilst it was close, there was no daylight.

The issue I have with this first of all is that the call hadn’t even gone to the video referee. Why were we having to talk about the decision in such detail? Let’s have one look, sure, but two or three looks when it’s not even gone to the video referee, really?

It was a try and a missed opportunity to talk about a fantastic score in bags of detail. Instead yet again we were talking about decisions by referees and not the quality play on the field, which has in my opinion happened way too often this season.

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Have we been talking too much about decisions in 2018?

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I’m not asking Sky to bin off Cummings. You never want to say someone should lose their job but his role should be reserved for video referee decisions only. At the moment he has a role which is almost like one of the regular commentators.

There is certainly value in having a former referee on the panel and the NRL do it much better but as a regular viewer, I don’t want to watch every referee decision gone through in detail. All that does is make rugby league about referees and fans don’t want that and I’m sure the referees don’t either.

We are struggling for stars as it is. I’d rather see the commentators going overboard talking about the quality rugby league on show than going on and on about decisions. Every sport has poor calls but they do a much better job of not talking themselves down so much. We need to start learning to praise the excellent skills on show more or how are we ever going to attract more people to watch and get involved?